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For Naked Angels, the Party's Over. Time to Get Serious Again.

PEOPLE opening the invitation for Naked Angels' celebrity-studded benefit on June 4 — a reading of "All the President's Men," with Edie Falco, Ron Rifkin, David Strathairn and Sam Waterston — may feel they've been suddenly sucked into a time warp. After all, back in its heyday, the late 1980's to early 90's, the Naked Angels Theater Company was almost as well known for its glamorous parties as for its promising talent and provocative productions. The group staged a boxing match starring Fisher Stevens and Charle Landry at Gleason's Gym and had Eddie Fisher sing the national anthem. At "The Big Swing" night at Laura Belle, Madeline Kahn did the honors as a singing M.C. The 40 or so members of Naked Angels posed for a Gap ad, were written up in Harper's Bazaar and had John F. Kennedy Jr. on their board.

Operating out of a decrepit former picture-frame factory on West 17th Street, Naked Angels soon became the "it" place for a generation of about-to-be famous young actors and playwrights. Jon Robin Baitz, Kenneth Lonergan, Frank Pugliese, Joe Mantello and Ned Eisenberg all got their start there. The actors Rob Morrow, Mary Stuart Masterson, Nancy Travis and Gina Gershon were also among its founding members. And it was at Naked Angels that a young actor named Matthew Broderick first got involved with his wife-to-be, Sarah Jessica Parker, whose brothers, Pippin and Toby, helped start the company.

"I wish I could say thank you to it," Mr. Broderick said. "It was a nurturing place."

Mr. Rifkin, who rekindled his acting career there, said: "It opened up a world to me that I thought was lost forever, like the Actors Studio or the Group Theater. It was a group of people who really had a bond, and the bond was to create something fantastic."

But by the mid-90's Naked Angels seemed to have lost its original focus, spending too much energy on events and hype. "We were known as the party company," Mr. Stevens said. "It became a big social scene and not as much work was being done as was needed."

Mr. Baitz said: "I felt frankly that our darkest days were having benefits in the Hamptons. The obvious comparison is the Atlantic Theater Company, which remained cohesive and coherent, seamlessly producing theater while we were busy doing ads and fund-raisers and benefits. It was like the story of the little grasshopper who plays and fiddles all summer, and the industrious ant who hoards stuff for the winter."

Too much glitz wasn't its only problem. In 1995 the group lost its home base on 17th Street. The success of some of the members also took a toll; as they left for Hollywood or Broadway, and started families, no new blood came in to replace the old. "What usually happens is the next generation would come along and help lead the charge," Mr. Stevens said. "We didn't have that." And the way the company was managed — democractically, by committee — made it particularly difficult to sustain an artistic vision.

"We all got scattered to the wind, pursuing our careers, having kids, and the loss of the space was devastating, it took the focal point away," said Tim Ransom, one of the founders, who made a last-ditch effort to revive Naked Angels by becoming artistic director in 2001. "We tried to be a collective, and with group-think it's really hard to get decisions made and get things done."

Photo

Jenny Gersten, the director of the Naked Angels Theater Company, at the Culture Project.Credit
Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Now, 20 years after it was first created, Naked Angels seems poised for a comeback — or at least a significant second chapter. In February 2005, the company appointed as artistic director 37-year-old Jenny Gersten. The daughter of Lincoln Center's executive producer, Bernard Gersten, and Cora Cahan, president of the New 42nd Street, the nonprofit group that oversees historic theaters, Ms. Gersten took her first stage bow as an infant, in the arms of Raul Julia, who was starring in the Public Theater's "Two Gentlemen of Verona."

It sounds like a fairy-tale beginning, but Ms. Gersten earned her theater experience the hard way. She worked for nine years as the associate producer of the Williamstown Theater Festival, then under the artistic direction of Michael Ritchie, who now heads the Center Theater Group in Los Angeles. (During that time, Williamstown transferred six productions to Broadway.) When Mr. Ritchie went to Los Angeles in 2005, Roger Rees was brought in as Williamstown's artistic director, and Ms. Gersten, who had ostensibly been in line for the job, left. Naked Angels jumped at the opportunity to recruit her.

"She is a godsend, a miracle, the perfect, perfect person to run this company," Mr. Ransom said. "She has great taste, she knows young talent, she grew up in the New York theater community. She has the pedigree and the experience. Our mantra is, if Jenny can't do it, no one can." Mr. Baitz added, "It's as simple as: she really gets it. It's in her bones."

Ms. Gersten is the first to admit that she has her work cut out for her. The budget is about $400,000 this year, in comparison to about $3 million for a company like Atlantic. "I grew up on the steps of the Public Theater," she said. "My parents' response was, are you sure you want to run a nonprofit?" Ms. Gersten said. "But the great part of this job is you can capitalize on the brand name and make it possible for another wave of artists to benefit from the popularity and good will that still exists for all these years."

Working out of the Naked Angels office in TriBeCa, Ms. Gersten has already produced two well-received works: "The Mag-7," an evening of seven one-act plays, and Elizabeth Meriwether's "Mistakes Madeline Made," which just completed a monthlong run at the Culture Project's downstairs theater. Both are notable for their young talent.

"When I went to see Liz's piece on opening night, I felt like a great weight lifted off me," Pippin Parker said. "Jenny's bringing back something very dynamic and relevant, and bringing in a different generation." (She has also injected new blood into the Tuesdays at 9 program and "Naked TV," begun in 2004, a collaboration with Fox TV in Los Angeles that produces a series of one-act plays.)

Under Ms. Gersten, Naked Angels has begun to recapture some of the nurturing spirit that inspired its alumni. "There was nothing like it, for all of its nonsense," Mr. Baitz said. "It was wonderful and communal and cosmopolitan and uniquely New Yorkish."

Marisa Tomei, another early member, agreed. "I still very much crave that community and safe place," she said. She said she thought Ms. Gersten could resurrect that feeling. "People really trust her," Ms. Tomei said. "She has a very clear vision, an artistic eye and producorial know-how."

And, of course, Naked Angels' legendary buzz remains a vital part of the package. "It still has that cool factor from the early days," said Deirdre O'Connor, 30, whose play, "Penicillin," was performed as part of "Mag-7." "People give you that look when you say you had a production at Naked Angels."

A version of this article appears in print on , on page AR7 of the New York edition with the headline: The Party's Over. Time to Get Serious Again. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe